


Sleepover

by drakarifire



Series: the universe won't see us end [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Everybody Lives, F/M, Fix-It, Found Family, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Sharing a Bed, idk what else to tag this, pls help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2020-12-16 00:04:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21026969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drakarifire/pseuds/drakarifire
Summary: The losers get some much needed rest.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I haven't written a fic since like middle school, and I'm kind of super nervous about this. I don't have a beta so I'm sorry for any mistakes and that there's not a whole lot of dialogue. I've had this scene kind of stuck in my head since the movie happened and I just...had to write it. So um...enjoy!! I might do more one-shots in this kind of AU thing or who knows like a whole fic, depends on what you guys want to see I guess.

He half wonders if this town is even real. Like the only thing keeping it moored in reality is their presence now that Pennywise is gone. There’s no one to watch as they leave the remnants of Neibolt street. No curious bystanders to peer at them from behind curtains as they shuffle covered in grim, blood, and dirty water from the quarry. With the seven of them walking side by side they take up the whole road yet no cars come or go and surely he thinks: someone’s gonna fucking say something- as they gaze with dazed eyes up at the Townhouse. 

The sun is too harsh and over-bright in Richie’s eyes. It makes the quarry water dry grimy and slick on his skin, his clothes turning stiff and hard. His glasses are shot, his body felt 80 years old, and his head was pounding. The world looked like a kaleidoscope but he didn’t think he’d ever seen so clearly. 

Derry had always felt clogged. The air thick with something you couldn’t quite shake- and sure he might have forgotten about it for 27 years but that feeling had stuck around. It had wrapped itself around their memories and congealed.

It’s dead.

It’s gone.

They won. They fucking won. 

Richie isn’t sure if it’s that litany of thoughts running circles around his subconscious or his own exhaustion finally catching up to him...but he feels fucking giddy. Like a schoolgirl about to get her first kiss on prom night, or like that time he took twelve shots of espresso in his coffee just to get through a set. 

His hands keep clenching and unclenching at his side, a vibration that started in his bones the second Neibolt collapsed in on itself, now eclipsing his entire body. He felt like a walking vibrator cranked up to the highest setting. 

“Didn’t think I’d ever be happy to see this fucking shithole.” His eyes danced to either side of him. The Losers. All of them. They look fucking wrecked. 

“I need a fucking drink.” Eddie muttered to the left of him, right hand curled around his opposite bicep. “And a goddamn shower. I can’t believe you assholes actually convinced me to jump into that water- do you have any idea what greywater does to open wounds-” 

“We didn’t convince you to do shit Eds, you were like the second one off the goddamn cliff!” 

“Was not dipshit! That was you!” 

“Boys!” Bev’s voice cut the steadily building argument short, though there was no intensity or bite hidden in her tone. She gestured towards the townhouse, “Can we maybe just move this inside?” 

“Sorry guys.” Eddie and Ritchie said in unison as though they’d only just become aware of the presence of the others and the fact that they hadn’t moved from the front lawn. They all looked so tired and haggard, Stan physically leaning his weight against Mike’s shoulder like he’d collapse to the ground without it. 

Richie gestured for the others to start moving up the steps. A single file line of grime covered, dazed adults. Bill opened the door once he reached the top, leaning his weight against it to hold it open while they all made their way inside. 

“Don’t call me Eds.” Eddie muttered a he moved past Richie, earning him a fond look and a wide smile. 

“Whatever you say Spaghetti.” 

“Ugh.” 

Bill closed the door behind them and then... 

“You know we could have just stayed outside if we were going to all just stand here.” Richie muttered, squinting at the small huddled mass of his friends in the foyer. Between his cracked glasses, piss poor eyesight, and having to readjust to the gloom he could barely make out their faces. 

“Honestly, I think I prefer the outside.” Ben muttered, one arm curling protectively around Bev’s shoulders and tucking her against his side. 

“Tell me about.” Eddie muttered, huffing out a soft breath. 

In truth, like the rest of Derry, the Townhouse felt different now too. It still felt devoid of life, but the ominous nature of that fact didn’t weigh as heavily as it had before. Now it just felt...sad. Like an empty old house left to grow dusty and dark. Nothing malicious about the vacant spot behind the check-in counter or the way the walls groaned quietly to themselves. It left Richie feeling struck by that same feeling in the pit of his stomach. Like It had been the only thing keeping this town attached to anything. The urge to leave before everything vanished in a puff of smoke, taking them with it was dizzyingly strong. 

Nobody seemed capable of saying anything for a while after that. Even Richie couldn’t do much aside from shuffling uncomfortably in his own silence, his eyes flicking nervously in Eddie’s direction. Gravitating towards him despite himself and only relaxing once they stood close enough to brush shoulders. 

“So...uh...plan?” He had to clear his throat to speak, his gaze flicking over their small group. They all turned to look at him expectantly, the triumph and relief from their earlier victory already fading to a bone-deep sense of exhaustion. “As much as I want to get the hell out of dodge we all kind of look like we escaped a Romaro movie.” 

“One more night here.” Bill spoke up then, snapping out of his thoughts with a sluggish blink, and standing straighter. Leader mode. “We clean up, sleep, and then-” 

“And then we leave.” Mike’s voice was a comfort, his reassuring nod making something in the air snap, lighting up the room. There was a finality in it. They weren’t just leaving, Mike was too. 

This shit was finally, officially, over. 

Now that there was something resembling a tentative plan, they broke apart for the first time since they’d crushed It’s heart in their hands. Richie made a beeline for the bar slipping behind it to fish out as many of the fuller bottles as he could scrounge up. Mike and Bill guided Stan upstairs with Eddie trailing close behind. Ben and Bev lingered for a moment holding each other before realizing they didn’t really need to let go to start walking. 

Eventually it was just Richie. At the bar. With his Thoughts. 

Pulling his glasses off his face, he pinched his eyes shut. It had been harder than he cared to admit to look at everyone after the deadlights. To see them and not pretend like their dead faces were superimposed over their living ones. 

“God that better fucking stop soon.” He muttered, popping a bottle of whiskey open and pouring himself a glass. “My liver hates me enough as it is.” He doesn’t sip the drink, instead knocking it back like a shot, and closing his eyes as it burned its way down his throat. 

One. Two. Three. He waits, blinks a few times, then lets himself relax.

A somewhat wheezy exhale slipping from his nose, before he bends down behind the bar and starts digging for more glasses. Aside from the fancy ( and dusty ) glass ones he finds a stack of plastic solo cups. Taking those, and three full bottles of whatever looks like it’d be good he starts making his way upstairs. 

\---- 

What Richie finds at the top of the stairs is an endearing kind of chaos. Bill’s door is thrown open, revealing what is likely the largest room in the building ( Surprise, Surprise. ) He’s helping Ben maneuver one of the mattresses in through the door frame, Mike and Eddie waiting in the wings with a second mattress. 

Nobody says anything to him in the way of explanation or chastises him for not helping, so he contends himself with just watching the scene unfold. 

“You got it B-Ben?” 

“Yeah- just. Shit.” 

There’s a momentary cry of surprise as the full weight of the mattress pins Bill against the door jam when Ben loses his grip on it. “W-watch it!” He’s yelling, but the stammer stems from his full blown laughter more than years of struggled speech. 

“Pivot!” Richie can’t help himself really. 

Stan shoots him a look, Eddie snorts, and Bill is in near hysterics. 

“What the hell are you guys even doing anyway?” 

“Sleepover.” Bev answers easily, from where she’s sitting on the floor next to Stan. Her legs spread out in front of her, leaning back on her hands. “It’s not like there’s anyone around here to stop us.” 

“Touche.” Richie says with a shrug. He steps over to them, holding out the bottles and cups for her and Stan to take before, turning over to where Ben is back to shoving the mattress into the room. “Alright haystack! Let a real man show you how it’s done.” 

Richie arguably makes it worse. He jokes, they laugh. He drops the mattress on Bill at least once more, and maybe four times on Eddie because...well it’s Eddie. There’s something beautifully comedic about the shorter man vanishing behind the giant white cushion and just the sound of his sputtering rage giving any indication that he’s back there. 

“You’re doing that on purpose you piece of shit!” 

“Prove it Eds- OW. What the fuck did you just kick my shin? Are you twelve?!” 

“If I’m twelve what’s that make you? Six?” 

He can vaguely hear Stan’s “I didn’t miss this.” and Bev’s laughter over their shouting. 

\----

Even with Bev’s explanation he doesn’t really get their big plan until they’re in Bill’s room and they’ve got as many mattresses on the floor as they can fit. It makes one giant bed with all their sheets and pillows ( as well as the sheets and pillows of the other rooms ) piled on top. Did the effort completely deplete any energy they had left? Abso-fucking-lutely. Was it worth it? Yeah. Yeah Richie thinks it was completely worth it. Especially once the job is done and they’re back to standing in a vacant eyed group. He doesn’t even realize they’re all holding hands. 

He should have. There’s something almost electrical about it. Like his heart is beating times seven and his blood has to move through six more bodies before cycling back through him. It’s supercharged and dizzying and it makes him feel like the complete opposite of floating. Like Pennywise and the Deadlights was the sky, and this right here was pressing his face into the earth and clenching his fingers in the dirt. 

It doesn’t even bother him that they’re quiet. That he’s quiet. 

One by one someone will break off to take a shower, then reattach before the next person goes to do the same. They all use Bill’s bathroom. They only go far enough to get a change of clothes, before stepping into the other room and turning on the shower. Bev is first. She steps out of the bathroom in a haze of steam with wet hair and a tired smile. Ben is next. Bill. Stan. Mike, who borrows some of Richie’s clothes. Eddie. 

Richie is last. He feels like he’s in the shower for a hundred years. He feels like no matter how hard he scrubs or how long he holds his head under the spray ( eyes wide open even if it fucking hurts ) like he’s trying to wash those goddamn images from where they’ve burned into his irises. He thinks of how he saw them, a thousand different versions of them. Versions where they all died, versions where Stan died, and versions where Eddie died. Versions where he’s the one that gets impaled, and even some where they don’t come back at all. Where Mike never calls and Pennywise keeps killing, and Richie never remembers that he carved letters on a bridge. 

“Richie? Hon, you okay in there?” Bev’s voice through the door, makes his eyes close and his hands clench silently.  
He knows if he doesn’t answer that they’ll probably burst in here. They’ve been through enough shit in the last 24 hours that he doesn’t think they’d give a shit about privacy or seeing him naked if they were really worried about him. Especially not after what Stan tried to do- what Pennywise made Stan try to do. 

Sucking in a breath but finding that he couldn’t really bring any words out he just stares down at his feet. Fucking hell Trashmouth, speak up. He goes for shutting off the shower instead, letting the lack of water serve as answer enough that he was fine. Everything was fine. 

Getting dressed, he walks out of the bathroom while trying his best to clean the fog from his glasses before sliding them back onto his face. 

“You don’t have any spares?” 

“You know me Eds. Never come prepared.” 

“Idiot.” The fondness in his voice is in sharp contrast to the disappointed frown on his face. It makes Richie’s stomach act like it’s trying out for the X-games. 

“Alright, alright you two. I’m stopping this before you start bickering again.” Bev has a hand on Richie’s chest, glaring up at him as though daring him to respond. His mouth opens like he just might do that, but the quirk of her brow and the slight narrowing of her gaze makes him slam it shut again. If that’s not a silent ‘Beep Beep’ he doesn’t know what is. 

They really are fucking tired. They have the booze from downstairs and they all, realistically, need a long fucking drink. Yet nobody manages more than a glass at most. Richie himself has had visions of getting plastered since the moment he turned to his friends on the lawn of Neibolt and saw...well, that death bullshit. So the fact that he’s one red solo cup in and already dozing is somewhat of a disappointment. 

He has a reputation of alcoholism to uphold here. 

Of course his inability to drink tonight is hardly something to be ashamed of. Not like how he threw up the moment Eddie clapped him on the back, grinned, and yelled “We fucking killed it!” All he could see was blood pouring from Eddie’s mouth and that goddamn claw bursting from his chest. 

Shit. Maybe a sleepover wasn’t a good idea. 

He remembered Beverly talking about the deadlights. Her nightmares. Watching the other losers steadily curling down to sleep, their arms and legs thrown across each other. He couldn’t help but feel a burst of anxiety bubbling up in his chest. A need to dash to his own room and sleep in his own bed. Alone. If only so he didn’t risk waking anyone up with what was surely going to be a rough ass night. 

“Richie?” Eddie’s voice was...slow, soft. Sleepy. His eyelids were at half mast already, everything about him looked like it was weighed down. His movements were sluggish. He’d laid down already, half lost in a mountain of pillows and blankets, Stan’s arm thrown over his waist. “You okay?” 

“Huh? Me? Yeah. Totally. A-ok Eds. You sleep. I’m just-” He waved a hand in the air absently, “Just thinking.” He made sure to keep his voice low because Bev was on his other side. One of her hands fisted tightly into his shirt. 

“Liar.” 

For a moment Richie was stunned. Not because there had been any vitriol behind the word, or because Eddie had snapped it at him. His voice was even, controlled and momentarily lacking all the weight of exhaustion. It was as much of a physical punch to his arm as if Eddie had reached out and socked him. 

“Gee, tell us how you really feel.” He didn’t want to look at any of them so he focused instead on a loose thread in one of the blankets. He hardly expected Eddie to actually grab him and drag him down, but he probably should have known better. 

At least stopped himself from making that weird strangled noise. 

“Lay down asshole. It’s bad enough I have to stare up at you when we’re standing.” He’d grabbed onto Richie’s elbow and tugged, leveraging himself up on one arm. He was surprisingly strong for someone so small, but then Richie had always known that about Eddie. 

Richie didn’t so much lay down in bed as he was hauled down onto his back. Barely managing to squirm into a comfortable position, before Eddie shifted to throw a leg and an arm across his body. Essentially locking him in place.  
Then, as if she could somehow read the situation in her sleep, Bev did the same on his other side. Throwing her leg over him and burying her head against his side. 

Well, shit. 

“I can’t sleep.” He said, and his voice was so soft he half wondered if Eddie could even hear it. 

“You haven’t tried.” 

Richie had to do a lot of mental cartwheels to even remember what he was going to say next. It was bad enough Eddie was using his body to keep him locked in place, but the soft whisper of breath against his neck and just the idea. THE IDEA. That Eddie had his face pressed up against Richie’s was giving him heart palpitations. “I-” no amount of lip wetting felt like enough to keep the dryness out of his mouth, or help the words slip out. 

There was a hand hovering by his face then. Fingers pulling the glasses he’d entirely forgotten he was wearing away from his eyes. He heard Eddie folding them, felt him stretch to set them somewhere safely above their heads. It was a level of intimacy he remembered from childhood that he hadn’t felt before or since, and it made a not so subtle ( nuclear level ) warmth blossom in his chest like a mushroom cloud. 

Or maybe his heart just exploded.

“I can’t sleep Eds. I keep seeing-” 

That hand was back on his face. It tugged his chin to the side, forcing his head in Eddie’s direction. Except his eyes remained glued to the ceiling. He refused. He couldn’t. He didn’t need his last sight of the night to be Eddie with blood pouring from his mouth. 

“God dammit Richie. Look. At. Me.” The grip on his chin tightened momentarily, then softened. Shifting to lay a hand flat against his cheek, nails scratching subtly- almost curiously at the stubble on his face. “Richie. Please.” 

Fuck. 

His eyes closed for a moment. He counted. One. Two. Three. 

When he opened his eyes they were focused on Eddie’s face. Eddie’s dead face. His entire body spasmed. He could feel himself gasp as somehow, despite having no glasses the vision in front of him was crystal clear and horrifying. Blood. So much blood and- 

“Richie. Richie. No. Look at me.” The words were coming out with a waterfall of blood. Richie wanted to run, he wanted to scramble out of this bed of rotting corpses and jump out the fucking window. He wanted to scream- 

Then it was gone. 

He blinked, and there was Eddie. Alive, beautiful, concerned Eddie. Is this what a panic attack feels like? Jesus no wonder Eddie was so neurotic. Fuck. His chest was contracting painfully, his heart pounding hard and fast in the back of his throat. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, like the world was spinning on the wrong axis or just...not giving a fuck anymore. Like Pennywise was using the whole globe as a top and Richie was barely hanging on for the ride. 

“Shhh, you’re okay Richie. You’re okay.” Eddie was so close now. Having someone so intimately in his space when he’s just trying to suck in air should have made it worse. Except it didn’t, not with Eddie. The hand on his face was rubbing gently at his skin and Eddie had moved enough to press their foreheads together. “None of that’s real. It’s gone. It’s dead. I’ve got you.” 

Slowly, like coming down from a bad high, Richie could feel himself evening out. He sank into Eddie’s touch, sank into Bev, and hell even Ben. ( He could feel Ben’s hand on his arm from where he’d thrown an arm over Beverly. ) He sank into that electrical buzz of safety, that feeling of being together that had charged through them when they’d all stood holding hands.

The Losers. A pile of forty-somethings sprawled across a bunch of ratty mattresses. Legs and arms tangled in a mess. No clues as to where one person ended and the other began. It was like summer. Like being thirteen again and sleeping over at each other’s houses. Only a thousand times better because they could never get everyone together for a sleepover, not with how some of their parents were. He lets himself fall into the sound of everyone’s calm and even breathing, lets his eyes close as he picks out the specific patterns of each of his friends. Eddie, Bev, Ben, Stan, Mike, and Bill. Everyone calm. Everyone safe and alive. 

The last thing he remembers before drifting off to sleep is the soft brush of Eddie’s lips against his.


	2. losers stick together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> morning softness and some weighted questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: remembers how chapter 2 ended   
also me: -spasms- 
> 
> I wasn't going to continue this, I didn't think I had anymore to write but then I just sat down one day and boom. I tried to finish this before I started my nano project but I kept getting side-tracked and not really knowing where I was going with it. It feels like it could be heading somewhere, but it also feels like it could end here. So we'll see!! Anyway, I just...needed to write my kids being soft and happy some more so enjoy. 
> 
> Warning for suicide discussions just as an fyi.

Richie doesn’t think that he’ll actually sleep. At most he’s expecting maybe ten minutes. Tops. And even that feels a little too generous. He’s sure the second he closes his eyes that he’ll be pulled back into the deadlights- that all of this is a dream waiting to turn sour on the tip of his tongue. He’s not sure how he knows it, but a part of him realized somewhat distantly that the visions were more than just glimpses of what could be. 

Somewhere out there, in another universe, those things really did happen. 

That’s what makes it so hard to let go. 

He’s not entirely sure how he knows it. He’s not even really sure it’s not some last ditch effort from Pennywise to fuck him over. All he knows is that in his heart he feels what all those separate version of him felt. Even with Eddie’s hand warm against his face, he knows explicitly what the devastation of losing him would feel like. He might see Stan laughing and smiling next to Bill, alive and whole, but he still feels the sharp knife of grief twisting in his gut. Could it get worse you might wonder? Of course, he’s Richie fucking Tozier. Everything can and probably will get worse. As if the devastation and grief isn't enough, he feels the weight of ages on his shoulders. He feels what it’s like to lose Eddie and Stan, to mourn them for months and years. He feels what it’s like to know he’s going to be alone and heartbroken for the rest of his life. 

He doesn’t tell them. Doesn’t even dare tell Beverly though he knows she’d understand. 

It feels like the kind of burden he needs to carry by himself. He doesn’t really get why, but it makes him hunch his shoulders and grit his teeth and hope to fuck nobody notices how close he is to breaking into a million pieces. That’s why he doesn’t think he’ll sleep. That’s why he’s surprised when darkness comes and it carries no flashing, blood soaked, images. 

They sleep for a long ass time. All seven of them curled up and clinging to each other. When Richie opens his eyes it’s to find the vague blur of Eddie’s head tucked onto one side of his chest and Bev’s on the other. 

He’s somewhat surprised to feel a hand in his and does his best to follow the arm up to Ben’s general direction, who he assumes is offering him a sleepy smile from the reassuring squeeze he feels around his fingers. “Mornin’.” Ben’s voice is low and thick with sleep, a whisper so as not to wake the others. 

“Real glad I can’t see you Haystack. I don’t think my ego could handle what you look like in the morning” Only vaguely remembering to keep his voice down for the benefit of everyone currently using him as a pillow. 

Ben chuckles, low and soft. 

He feels the hand holding his detach itself followed by a slight movement and the familiar clatter of his glasses. Ben fishing them from wherever Eddie had placed them the night before and gently sliding the frames onto Richie’s face with one hand, bringing the world into kaleidoscopic focus. 

“If Bev doesn’t marry you I fucking will.” He blinks behind his frames, and finds himself not that surprised to feel Ben knit their fingers together again. “Granted I don’t think I could handle waking up next to you every morning. I’ll have a stroke. In fact I think I’m having one right now. It’s unfucking fair that you look this good this goddamn early.” 

Ben’s grin lights up his whole face, bright like a literal beam of sunshine. “It’s called living healthy Rich, you should try it sometime.” 

“Fuck off.” He’d have flipped him off for emphasis but his arms felt too warm and comfortable where they were.”We both know it’s too late to turn back the clock on my tired, alcoholic ass.” He settles for a roll of the eyes and a soft huff of annoyance. “What time is it anyway?” 

“Like 4, almost 5.” 

“In the morning?” 

“Nope.” 

“Shit.” 

He hadn’t just slept, he’d gone into a goddamn coma. They all had. Lifting his head slightly off the pillow his gaze traces over the other Losers. Stan had wrapped his arms around Eddie’s torso and buried his face against Eddie’s back. Bill was at somewhat of an angle behind him. Laying haphazardly in the giant bed so that his legs were tangled up with Stan’s but the rest of him was half buried under Mike. It was almost too easy to imagine them all as kids again curled up exactly like this on someone’s living room floor. It kind of hurts to think about honestly. A pang of nostalgia for simpler times. Or maybe just the pain of wishing they’d all been friends in a world that didn’t have killer space clowns and shitty parents. 

“It’s nice isn’t it?” 

Ben’s voice is so soft Richie barely hears it. When he turns Ben has his face lightly pressed against the top of Bev’s head, gently cushioned in her hair. 

He almost says yeah, the word sitting there on the tip of his tongue. It’s nice. More than nice. Richie doesn’t remember the last time he’d ever felt this warm, this _safe_. Even with the shitty horror movie his brain had turned into, being here in this room with his friends made him feel like he was thirteen again. Like summer would stretch on forever and the threat of a killer sewer clown was forgotten, buried under the sheer weight of their togetherness. Their shared trauma momentarily brushed aside by each other’s presence. Richie had come to realize that first night in Jade of the Orient that he’d been missing this for almost his entire life. Their faces might have been gone from his memory, their names erased by that shit-faced clown, but this feeling and the absence of it had always been there. Fuck. No wonder he’d been so goddamn _miserable_ all the time. 

He knew that if anyone would understand the shaky vulnerability in his voice it’d be Ben. He could say everything he really felt, lay out just how much this moment meant to him, and Ben would smile knowingly. 

Except Richie wasn’t quite there yet. 

Maybe he’d never be there, not anymore. Not after so many years of repression and self-loathing. Being soft wasn’t wrong some deep, tiny voice whispered to him. Ben did it all the time and everyone loved him regardless. Except that voice was always drowned out by something harsher, something that sounded uncomfortably like the man he’d killed. _Only fags are soft_. The voice hissed._ Dirty Dirty Secret_, something deeper and darker echoed beneath it. Even if it wasn’t a secret anymore, even if they all knew and they all still loved him...Eddie still loved him. You just didn’t shake off decades of repression with a few stolen kisses. 

He knew he’d taken too long to answer by the way Ben’s quiet comfort slowly stitched into concern. Brows furrowing slightly, voice almost too quiet to hear over Richie’s racing thoughts. “Rich, you okay?” 

“What? Oh. Yeah Haystack, I’m good.” _Joke_, the voices taunted. _Laugh_. Richie’s face split into the same wide grin that he’d been using to hide every soft and uncomfortable thought since he was a kid. “Just thinking about how this is the lamest orgy I’v-” 

His words were muffled by the sudden appearance of a hand across his mouth. His first thought was Eddie but a flash of pale white bandages around slender wrists nipped that idea pretty quickly. 

“I swear to god Trashmouth.” Stan’s voice was a low sleepy rumble, but the eyes peeking out at him over Eddie’s still sleeping shoulder were as cool and sharp as ever. “Do you ever shut the fuck up?” 

Richie let his tongue swipe out. His eyes lighting up in glee as Stan wrenched his hand back like it’d been burned and made a face. 

“Real mature asshole.” 

“Aw c’mon Stany, you know you always liked my tongue.” He winked, eyebrows wiggling explicitly. 

Ben was trying really hard not to laugh, muffling himself into quiet giggles by turning his head and burying his face against a pillow. 

“I’m murdering all of you.” Eddie’s voice was half muffled against Richie’s chest, but Richie didn’t need to see his face to remember that Eddie had never been a morning person. Especially not when he was being woken up against his will. 

“Good morning Spagheds!” Richie cooed, voice rising an octave into something annoyingly chipper and bright. 

Stan gagged. Ben wheezed like he was the one that had asthma. 

“Mmm, not if I kill them first..” Bev was smiling against Richie’s side, her eyes still closed like she was trying to hold onto the last tendrils of sleep. 

“Get in line Marsh. I’ve had dibs on killing Richie since preschool.” 

“I feel so loved right now.” 

Bev hummed, the sound evolving into a low and sleep filled chuckle. Blindly she reached her hand out. Despite the bite in his tone Eddie didn’t hesitate to meet her, their hands interlaced across Richie’s stomach like a seat-belt. Edide’s thumb rubbing lightly across her knuckles. 

It made a warmth blossom so suddenly through his entire body that Richie’s brain just. Stopped. He was forty fucking years old, sad and alcoholic, filled to the brim with misery and self loathing. 

But Jesus Fucking Christ if he didn’t feel like he’d just discovered the true meaning of the universe. 

If the others noticed his short circuiting brain or the way his own hands sought out Ben’s and eventually Stan’s they didn’t say anything. What was there to say? A calm sort of early morning quiet had settled over them, even if it wasn’t technically morning. The warmth of each other’s presence, the soft sounds of everyone slowly stirring from their sleep- it filled the room with a gentle, healing energy. 

Richie had no idea if he was just being the world’s sappiest gay, but he almost felt like all his aches and pains were melting away. All his stress, his worries, his deep seated self loathing, and claustrophobic childhood traumas evaporating into the air with each breath. 

Like the night before once they were all awake there wasn’t really much talking at first. The events that transpired yesterday, their victory, had lulled them into a dazed silence. If any of them moved it was to pile closer, to reach out hands and tangle legs together until Richie was starting to wonder if they were attempting to form a human ball. 

He didn’t think he’d mind that much if they did. 

“I gotta change my band-aid, and Stan’s.” Eddie mumbled almost reluctantly against Richie’s chest, Stan giving an affirmative grunt behind him that Richie took to mean he’d started slipping back into sleep. 

“I’ve gotta take a shit.” Richie said simply. 

“Beep Beep Richie.” Bill’s voice snorted from somewhere behind Stan. 

It was Ben who sat up first, arms stretching above his head. “I can make breakfast?” His head tilted, meeting someone’s eyes on the other end of the snuggle pile. “What’dya say Mike? Help me cook?” 

“Guys you know it’s like...almost dinner time right?” 

“Rich you ate a whole stack of pancakes at midnight once.” 

“Bev! That was supposed to be our secret!” 

“We were all there dipshit.” 

“Wait- really?” 

Mike laughed, warm and deep from still lingering sleep. “Who do you think made the pancakes Trashmouth?” 

“Fuck.” 

They were still laughing as Ben kissed Bev’s cheek and climbed to his feet before hauling Mike up one-handed. The amusement only dying down as they scattered for bathroom breaks and other morning rituals. 

Richie could have easily gone back to his room, started packing his sad little duffle bag and booking his flights, but he found himself lounging sideways on the mattress again instead. Bev settling back against his stomach, her legs stretched out so that her feet could rest on Bill’s lap, her hands playing with Richie’s fingers. Years of sewing had formed hard calluses on her palms and the tips of her fingers but there was still something soft in the way she traced the lines of his palm. Their scars might have been gone but he didn’t need to see the little raised line to know when her fingertips lingered where it used to be. She looked content and contemplative, soft but strong all at once. 

Bill was massaging her feet, albeit absently, his eyes focused on Stan. Eddie had braved his room the night before ( with Bill ) long enough to get his first aid kit and was sitting cross-legged beside them, facing Stan with his face scrunched up in concentration. Deft hands gently taking Stan’s arm and starting to unwrap the bandages that adorned his wrist. 

“Why’d you do it?” Richie regretted the words almost the second they made contact with the air, if not before. The quiet serenity of the room turned so fast it was like a whip cracking. 

“Beep Beep Richie.” Bill nearly growled, his body so stiff his spine might as well have been a metal rod. 

“Bill it’s okay.” Stan’s voice was soft but stern. He’d have reached for him but his hand was still in Eddie’s so he settled for bumping their shoulders instead. “I kind of wrote you guys letters and I figured I could just wait till you got them but…” Stan’s eyes had drifted down towards his wrist, drawing Richie’s attention away from the other man’s face towards Eddie’s hands. 

Eddie was trying so hard not to squeeze Stan’s wrist between his fingers. Richie could see the muscles of his forearms straining with the effort to keep his touch gentle, to not cling to those slender wrists like letting go would make Stan slip away from them. Eddie’s face wasn’t much better. His eyes hadn’t lifted from where they were burning a hole into the thin scar on Stan’s skin, his shoulders heaving slightly in a way Richie recognized almost instantly. 

If his hand wasn’t still tangled between Bev’s fingers he’d have reached out. He almost called Eddie’s name, whispered something to him, but they were not close enough for it to be just between them and Richie didn’t want to take the attention away from Stan. 

“I thought it’d be better.” Stan’s voice was quiet but the words sounded like gunshots in Richie’s ears. Their weight hitting him squarely in the chest, a barrage of bullets. “I thought that if I was here I’d fuck up...I’d get us killed.” 

Richie sensed something in the quiver of Stan’s voice and when his gaze finally ripped itself from Eddie he could see tear tracks trailing down his old friend’s cheeks. 

“I j-ju- I just remembered Neibolt. I- I remembered how scared I was h-how I separated us.” His eyes closed tight like he was trying to block the memory from playing out. His free hand lifted up, fingertips brushing against the barely visible ring of scars that adorned the edges of his face. “I thought-” 

“Why’d you stop?” 

Eddie’s eyes hadn’t moved from the scar and his voice reflected that. It was unfocused and distant, like the question had been asked by something outside of himself. His body eerily still even as the other three Loser’s in the room jolted. It wasn’t simultaneous, it was a wave like Richie had been struck by lightning and the bolt wound through Bev and all the way to Bill. 

Stan was quiet, they were all quiet. It wasn’t comfortable like the silences that had been settling over all of them since the night before. This one was weighted, like boulders on their shoulders and pressing them down into the floor. Richie had vague recollections of Stan falling into similar silences before, contemplative and weighing his words carefully before speaking. The moments had been rare. Stan was always quick witted and his mind always seemed leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of them. Observant and knowing in a way that Richie could never quite put his finger on. 

“I remembered.” It was whispered, but unshaking. He still had tears in his eyes but they flicked from one face to another before settling on Bill. “I remembered my promise. I remembered every one of you and I- I thought it was too late. I’d started and then the memories came and it was like something inside of me had been dead the whole time without them.” His eyes closed, shoulders shaking. “I saw you Bill, I saw you the day we made that promise and I thought- Fuck.” He laughed, it was a bitter broken sound, lacking any humor. 

Richie could recognize it for what it was: Self-Deprecating. 

Bill’s hand had moved to Stan’s shoulder, Bev had pulled herself up into a sitting position so she could touch Stan’s knee. Eddie was softly stroking the edges of the wound on Stan’s wrist with the pad of his thumb, gentle and almost reverent. Shifting onto his knees Richie did his best to clamber across the mattress towards his friends. Swinging himself around to Stan’s other side so he could perch his chin on the other man’s shoulder. 

Stan didn’t look at any of them and Richie could understand that. Allowed himself to rub reassuring circle’s against Stan’s back. 

“I thought about how much it’d hurt not seeing any of you again.” Stan’s voice was a low whisper, they probably wouldn’t have heard it if the room wasn’t deathly silent and if they weren’t all huddled so close together. “Then I thought about how nothing, not even that goddamn clown, was as terrifying as disappointing you.” 

He didn’t say it, didn’t even glance up, but they knew. They knew that those last words were for Bill. Big Bill. Their fearless leader. Richie might have looked at Eddie one day and realized he was in love, but Eddie wasn’t the first. 

Richie could remember the faintest of memories. Golden tinged and soft with innocence. Bill standing over him with his hands on his hips and a sharp intensity in his blue eyes. He didn’t stutter then, he hadn’t had his accident yet, but even if he had it wouldn’t have changed anything. Richie still would have looked up at Bill and thought  _ woah _ . 

They were all like that. Even now. Even when age had softened Bill’s edges somewhat and adulthood had leached their innocence out like a sponge. They all still carried that torch for Bill, they’d all still dive into the sewers headfirst because he asked it of them. 

“You could never disappoint me Stan.” Bill’s voice was steady in that way he got sometimes when you knew it was important. When you knew he meant it. He might have been losing his stutter since they’d won but he still took extra care to speak slowly, deliberately. Like he wanted to make sure he was driving the point home. “I can never be thankful enough that you’re here. With us.” His hand slipped from Stan’s shoulder, replacing it with his chin. “Even if you weren’t here, even if you were gone. I’d trust your decision. I trust _you_.” 

Stan had been so thinly holding himself together this entire time. Like a sheet of paper balanced on the edge of a precipice waiting for the slightest breeze. At those words the breeze became a strong gust and Stan folded into himself as the dams broke and sobs contorted his features and shook his slender shoulders. 

Instantly. Instinctively. They closed around him like a shield. 

“We love you Stan.” Beverly whispered, pressing a kiss to Stan’s curls. 

“C’mon Stany, you’re going to make me cry.” Richie muttered half-heartedly, already fucking cry and they all knew it. 

It earned him a watery laugh from Stan’s chest though so the crying was decidedly worth it. 

“You guys I need to change this bandage and now I ca-can’t fucking see.” Eddie was rubbing furiously at his eyes like they were betraying him. His eyebrows pinched together. He was frowning but the effect of it was lost in the very visible wobble of his bottom lip. 

Richie wanted to kiss him. 

It’d be snotty and wet and absolutely disgusting, but god did he want to kiss Eddie Kaspbrak right now. 

“Hey Eds.” 

“I told you to stop calling me that dipshit.” 

“C’mere for a sec.” 

Eddie stopped rubbing at his eyes, the frustrated anger in his expression morphing to one of uncertainty and suspicion. “No.” 

“Aww c’mon don’t be like that.” Richie pouted, well aware that he was still crying and making no moves to even bother trying to hide it. “It’s not bad, scout’s honor.” 

“You got kicked out of the fucking boy scouts nimrod.” 

“Still counts.” 

“No it doesn’t.” 

Between them Stan’s sobs were morphing into laughter, head shaking in disbelief as he glanced between them. “D-do you two ev-ever shut the fuck up?” 

“Eds c’mon. I promise it’s nothing bad.” He lifted his head off Stan’s shoulder, smiling softly as Eddie sighed in defeat. 

“Fine.” He shifted, leaning closer to Richie. “What do you want?” 

It only took a small movement to push their lips together. A brief lean past Stan and into Eddie’s space. He was right. It was wet and snotty and gross...but it was also _Eddie_ so it was soft and warm and perfect. It didn’t matter that their friends were there. That this was the first kiss with witnesses. There was a hammer in his chest shattering his anxieties and the walls of the closet he’d been shoving himself into for the past forty years. 

He realized, and the thought was almost painful to think about, that he should have never worried about this. Maybe not the whole being gay in fucking Derry thing, but about their friends. His heart ached for all the years his fears had stripped away from him..from them. 

For a moment he could see it in the back of his mind. Bill and Stan and Ben covering for them so they could spend a day alone together without their parents knowing. The whole group a protective circle, tight and compact as they walked down the street, laughing and smiling, but shielding Richie and Eddie’s linked hands from the world outside. 

“Jesus Christ, fucking finally.” Bev nearly crowed. 

“Could you guys not make out with me right here? It’s bad enough I have to deal with you two bitching at each other all the goddamn time.” 

When they broke apart it left Richie with a warm, albeit dazed smile on his features. The tension in the room shattered and replaced with that feeling from before. That soft easy warmth that had accompanied them as they curled up together on the pile of mattresses. 

They were laughing when Ben and Mike came back from the kitchen. Eddie’s rapidfire complaints and instructions bombarding Richie at superhuman speed. Richie teased of course, pretended he wasn’t listening, but took extra care to clean the wound on Eddie’s face and reapply the bandage exactly how Eddie wanted it. Smiling fondly even as he slipped into an overly exaggerated British accent and insisted that he still needed to suck the wound.

“_Don’t you fucking dare Richard_.” 

“Breakfast is served!” Ben said cheerily, and he and Mike wheeled an antique trolley that looked older than all their grandparents put together squeakily into the room. It was loaded down with pitchers of orange juice and plates of pancakes, eggs, and perfectly fried bacon. 

“Wow I didn’t know this place had room service.” 

“Where the fuck did you guys even find that thing?” Eddie’s nose crinkled distastefully, “I can practically feel the tetanus from here.” 

Ben shrugged, and Mike grinned “It was in the lounge. Figured nobody'd care if we borrowed it, plus it beat having to make two trips.” 

Bev chuckled, “You know we could have come down right?” 

“Could you? Really?” Ben gave them all a knowing look, his gaze dropping from them to the mattresses they’d barely left since they’d woken up. 

“Okay. Fair.” Bev snorted, then extended her arms outward, fingers wiggling like a child. “Food please. I’m fucking starving.” 

Somehow, they ended up in a circle. The same configuration as that day in the field all those years ago. Only this time they were sitting cross-legged on the mattresses with their plates balanced on their laps. They ate and they talked, most of it about old memories that were still coming back even then. Wistful looks on their faces as they looked back on their all too short time together. 

There is an elephant in the room. 

A big looming threat on the horizon that they all know has to do with adulthood. As much as they feel like kids in this moment they know that none of them wants to stick around here much longer, and they all have lives they built elsewhere. Away from each other. Lives that feel fake and in the cases of some like horrific caricatures of reality. 

Richie doesn’t want this to end. He realizes that so hard it hurts. He could give two shits about Derry, but this right here- 

He didn’t think he could live losing any of it again. 

“So...how are we doing this?” He hated the quiet that came with that question but it had to be asked and if someone was going to blurt out a mood ruining statement it was Richie Trashmouth Tozier. “I mean not that I’m not enjoying sitting around painting each others nails and gossiping about boys but I really want to get out of this fucking town.” 

“I’ll drink to that.” Mike murmured lifting his glass of orange juice like it was a beer. He took a gulp, then let his head fall back to where it had been resting half on Stan’s chest. 

They’d fallen into that haphazard spread of bodies again once the food was gone. Bev was back to lounging, only this time her pillow was Ben and her legs were thrown across Richie’s and Eddie’s. Eddie had curled up against Richie’s side, hand tucked under the hem of Richie’s shirt, fingers twirling absently at the hairs on his stomach. Stan was leaning against Richie’s other side, Bill was slotted between his legs with his back to Stan’s chest. Stan’s arms were thrown over Bill’s shoulders, hands fiddling absently with the fabric of his shirt, while Mike’s hand absently combed through Bill’s hair. 

“We won’t forget this time.” Beverly filled the silence with something they’d all been thinking. Her green eyes finding each of theirs. “You guys feel it too right?” Her fingers moved to press against her forehead, “It’s gone, and I think this is like our gift.” She hummed, chewing on the inside of her cheek. 

“Yay I get to keep my trauma! Just what I’ve always wanted.” 

Eddie swatted at him, “Shut the fuck up asshole.” 

“Y-yeah Bev. I felt that too.” Bill said, offering her a smile, and something in them let out a collective sigh of relief. 

“So what now then?” Ben’s fingers were gently massaging Bev’s scalp. Richie thought it was a miracle she’d been able to string words together much less a whole sentence. 

“I don’t know.” Bill’s shoulders shrugged, but he offered them all a smile. The kind of smile that would have seen them following him into the very pits of hell and back. A smile that still, after all these years and Eddie setting up shop in his heart, made Richie’s stomach flip and roll. “Whatever it is though, we’ll do it together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *aggressively ignores everything that canon stands for*


End file.
